More good news for Mathieu van der Poel in his quest to add Mountain Biking World Championship to his collection: "I am sure that Mathieu can do it"
Mountain BikeThursday, 09 January 2025 at 10:47
Mathieu van der Poel, the Dutch cycling superstar, is no
stranger to world titles. With six cyclocross world championships, one road,
and one gravel title to his name, there is only one major prize missing from
his illustrious collection: the Mountain Biking World Championship. Van der
Poel himself admits that this elusive title still plays on his mind.
In 2025, his path to the mountain biking crown could be
slightly easier, thanks to a new UCI rule. The rule allows riders ranked in the
top 10 of another cycling discipline to start at least from the fifth row at
the Mountain Bike World Championships. This means Van der Poel, currently
ranked fifth in the UCI rankings for both road and cyclocross, will not need to
compete in numerous UCI mountain biking events to secure a favourable starting
position.
The new regulation, implemented after the Mountain Bike
World Championships in Glasgow, provides a significant advantage for
multi-discipline riders like Van der Poel. For the upcoming championships in
the Swiss Valais, the Dutchman can already count on starting from the fifth
row, even though he currently has no UCI points in mountain biking.
National coach Gerben de Knegt commented on the situation in
an interview with Sporza, saying, "It is true that Mathieu currently has
zero UCI points in mountain biking. So he will not start at the very front.
Even if Mathieu rode two World Cups, he would not end up in the top 100 of the
UCI rankings."
While the new rule helps, De Knegt highlighted the
challenges Van der Poel faces in his quest for the mountain biking title.
"I am sure that Mathieu can do it, but at some point before the World
Championships he will have to get the feeling that he can become world
champion," De Knegt explained.
He also noted the level of competition Van der Poel would
face, pointing out the dominance of British rider Tom Pidcock, "It’s been
a while since Mathieu has ridden mountain bike at the highest level. Tom
Pidcock is the two-time Olympic champion, you can’t beat him that easily,"
said De Knegt.
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- True, but, Mads has a few more years of collection and his season’s tally will start levelling off whereas Jonas’ should be just starting so even if Mads overtakes him, it’s probably briefly. That now all being clear, obviously the greatest is Tony Rominger, at least that’s their most popular male cyclist, which is another way of saying he must have been great :-) Hey, sorry but if someone’s going to ask rabbit-hole questions, you can only expect rabbit-hole answers.Mistermaumau14-05-2025
- Yeah, “little guy” who already beat Groenewegen and Merlier ;-) Also love how the media overhype anything in cycling, TNT saying this was a HUGE win for the team, let’s go back to using superlatives corresponding to reality. An important win maybe but c’mon, 50 points more than second when we’re at 20000? Had the team gotten 4th 5th and 6th and missed the podium completely they’d have collected more points but NO-ONE except themselves would have written one single word about their performance. Still well done to them for proving that the stage 3 pundit criticism about the little guys was unnecessary.Mistermaumau14-05-2025
- The ranking points between Jakob Fuglsang and Jonas Vingegaard is huge, BTW.. about 6700 ranking points. Mads trails Jonas by 14 points.FredMan14-05-2025
- Greatest ever? Based on CyclingRanking.com, Rolf Sorensen is #1, Jakob Fuglsang is #2, Jonas Vingegaard is #3, and Mads Pedersen is a very close #4. If you'd rather rely on personal opinion, or favorites, or what not, it's anybody's guess.FredMan14-05-2025
- I love it when the "little guy" wins!acem8214-05-2025
- Yeah, TdF is completely overrated, only amateurs and has-beens participate. And little ole skimpy Jonas has only won it as often as Switzerland or The Netherlands or Germany and Australia combined. Prestigewise there is NO comparison until he wins either the WC again or something big coz sorry G-W is basically a 2nd rate race at their level and he’s not won much else except a decent collection of stages, which Jonas and plenty of sprinters win too. Until now, MP is about pulling level with Asgreen who also won stages and classics, was a WC and HE got himself a monument and almost as many almosts as Mads but in a career only half as long.Mistermaumau13-05-2025
- Jonas is a great rider but only rides stage races so i would have to say he & Mads are about equal now. Stage racing in general is overvalued i think... (vs the power required to win one day races)Xrider5113-05-2025
- Jonas only does stage raXrider5113-05-2025
- First goats and now great danes, all we need now is a showdown at the tour of turkey, that could maybe slide into grease. Sorry, always happens when I get tired.Mistermaumau13-05-2025
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so, tom could
dedicate himself to CX all year, every year and probably never beat mathieu in a cyclocross world championship, barring a crash or injury or whatever. does pidcock have that kind of advantage over van der poel in XCO, or is that a gap mvdp can close even at this latter stage of mathieu’s career?
i’m ashamed to admit that i really don’t know enough about mtb and xco to know mathieu’s chances of winning world’s if he dedicates his season to that discipline once the spring classics are over. anyone want to take a moment to enlighten me i’d appreciate your take on it.
It’s very difficult to say now since he’s hardly ever raced over the last 5-6 years. Had he continued when he was good at it he’d most definitely have won it at some point, the type of course playing a decisive role. But business dictated he should focus more on road racing. Much as he tries, you can’t be everywhere at once and win it all and there are only so many years to a career.
MVP has already benefited from this rule at a MTB World Championships. The UCI amended the rules a day or two before the 2023 MTB XCO World Champs in Glasgow, Scotland. The rule was changed at the last minute so that MVP and Sagan started further up the grid to supposedly make for a better race for the fans. However, it made little difference as MVP crashed about 3 turns in on the start loop and withdrew from the race.
He’s good at messing up his WCs ;-)